Children outside 770 Eastern Parkway, Chabad headquarters in Brooklyn, on Jan. 9, 2023. (Photo/Forward-Mira Fox
Children outside 770 Eastern Parkway, Chabad headquarters in Brooklyn, on Jan. 9, 2023. (Photo/Forward-Mira Fox

This story was originally published in the Forward. Click here to get the Forward’s free email newsletters delivered to your inbox.

A near-riot and a dozen arrests at Chabad Lubavitch headquarters are bringing attention to deep rifts between Chabad officials and those who openly believe their late rebbe is the messiah.

The fracas Monday at 770 Eastern Parkway in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn began when a cement truck arrived to fill in a tunnel dug by the meshichisten. (Meshichisten is the Yiddish term used to describe Chabad’s “messianists,” who fervently believe in the imminent return of Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, the Lubavitcher Rebbe who died in 1994.) The passageway was apparently used to dump debris from an unauthorized expansion of the synagogue onto an unused property next door.

Once they realized the tunnel was being filled in, the black-hatted young men protested by tearing wooden panels down and overturning furniture. Chabad spokesperson Motti Seligson said police made arrests and that the building was closed pending a structural safety review. 

Seligson described the vandals as “extremist students” who broke through walls from the synagogue at Chabad headquarters to create “unauthorized access” to adjacent properties. 

The messianists, mostly young bochurim or yeshiva students, many of them from Israel, have congregated in the synagogue in the building’s basement for years. But they are not permitted upstairs, where the organization’s official offices are located. 

Theories on why they dug

Precisely why they began to dig the passageway is unclear. Some say the Rebbe himself, before he died, called for expanding the synagogue, and the students felt they were fulfilling his vision. Some say they dug the tunnel to preserve access in case they were banned from the building. Some say the digging began to preserve access during the 2020 pandemic shutdown, when New York sought to limit indoor gatherings. 

Yaacov Behrman, who functions as a public relations liaison for Chabad, said on X that “rogue individuals were attempting to excavate an area for an illegal cellar adjacent to the synagogue” and that they had dug the passageway from that area to a neighboring vacant property in order to dispose of debris. (Seligson objected to calling the opening a tunnel, but it appears to be just that on video widely posted online.)

One anonymous but self-described “devoted” messianist said in a comment to a news story online that the group’s “actions in expanding 770 are not only justified but are a crucial step in preparing for the imminent arrival of Moshiach. The Rebbe, our dear leader and the Moshiach himself, initiated the groundbreaking for this expansion in 1988, laying down a clear path for us to follow. This was not merely a physical expansion; it was a divine directive, a preparation for the era of Moshiach.” 

He added that in breaking down the wall, the students were “actively participating in hastening the arrival of Moshiach.”

Leadership vacuum at the top

Whatever the explanation, the brouhaha has brought the community’s divisions into the public eye, underscoring a “leadership vacuum” that has existed since the Rebbe’s death three decades ago, according to Samuel Heilman, a City of New York University professor emeritus and Chabad expert. 

“You can’t run a movement this size with all of these different points of view without someone who says what’s correct and what’s not correct,” Heilman said in a phone interview from Israel, where he now lives, “particularly in Hasidic life where so much is put in the hands of the rebbe. If you don’t have a living rebbe, this is the kind of thing that happens.”

On the face of it, the organization’s influence has expanded worldwide since the Schneerson’s death. There are now 3,500 Chabad houses operating in hundreds of neighborhoods and college towns around the U.S. and in another 100 countries around the world. 

But back in Brooklyn, Chabad’s establishment and the insurgents have clashed over messaging as well as control of the building. The messianists periodically blitz New York and other cities with posters proclaiming, “Moshiach (the messiah) is coming!” featuring pictures of the Rebbe. While that message is officially frowned on by Chabad’s leadership, it is not without some support in the community. 

The court battles 

Meanwhile, court battles have raged for years over who has ownership rights to the main synagogue in the iconic building. Lubavitch officials “have attempted to gain proper control of the premises through the New York State court system; unfortunately, despite consistently prevailing in court, the process has dragged on for years,” Seligson said.

Put more plainly, the yeshiva students have “been kept from going upstairs by the official owners,” Heilman said. 

Referring to the chaotic debris-strewn premises shown on video, Heilman added: “Nothing could show the disarray and lack of leadership more than the way that room looked.” 

He said he wasn’t so sure that the tunnel was dug to ensure access as to “get them space they could call their own. But it was without any permission, without any expertise, and it’s clearly undermined respect for Chabad.” 

Conspiracy theories 

News of the fracas also led to the eruption on social media of baseless and antisemitic conspiracy theories suggesting that the tunnels were being used for child sex trafficking and even child sacrifice. “Since the Jews enjoy killing babies in Gaza, it wouldn’t be bad to assume that they murdered babies in those satanic Synagogue tunnels,” tweeted one conspiracist. 

Shloime Zionce, a Hasidic podcaster, noted on X that “the internet is now filled with wild conspiracy theories regarding the tunnels which were dug under 770 Eastern Parkway. It’s going to take a long time to disprove, dispel, and discredit these crazy rumors. The time has time for community leaders to take action and shut down the troublemakers once and for all.”

Worldwide replicas of 770

The three-gabled building at 770 Eastern Parkway is architecturally unremarkable in Brooklyn, where streetscapes with brick-and-stone Gothic Revival structures from the early 20th century abound. But in the Chabad world, it is revered. Three dozen replicas have been built around the world, including in India, Brazil, Italy, Australia and Texas. 

And what about the messianists’ apparent disregard for safety in undertaking their impromptu renovations in a city where building collapses and gas pipe explosions are not unusual?

“These are people who are not in a great relationship with reality,” Heilman said. “Many of them are young and uneducated. At the same time, they see themselves, these kids, these meshichisten, as the genuine Chabad.” He added that some of them “not only believe the Rebbe is the messiah, but they think he’s here already even though they can’t see him.”

He also noted the “irony of it happening at the same time that here in Israel, we’re fighting an enemy in tunnels,” an irony that was echoed by many commenting on social media. 

But he dismissed one other theory — that the bochurim undertook the digging only recently because they believe war in the Middle East presages the Rebbe’s imminent return.

“There’s always war in the Middle East,” he said. 

This article was originally published on the Forward.

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Beth Harpaz is a reporter for the Forward. She previously worked for the Associated Press, first covering breaking news and politics, then as AP Travel editor. Follow her @literarydj or email [email protected].